Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe, extending northward into Siberia and east and southward into the Indian subcontinent, mounting invasions of Southeast Asia, and conquering the Iranian plateau; and reaching westward as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains.

The empire emerged from the unification of several nomadic tribes in the Mongol heartland under the leadership of Temüjin, known by the title of Genghis Khan (c. 1162–1227), whom a council proclaimed as the ruler of all Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out invading armies in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the East with the West, and the Pacific to the Mediterranean, in an enforced Pax Mongolica, allowing the exchange of trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies across Eurasia.

The empire began to split due to wars over succession, as the grandchildren of Genghis Khan disputed whether the royal line should follow from his son and initial heir Ögedei or from one of his other sons, such as Tolui, Chagatai, or Jochi. The Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of the Ögedeid and Chagatayid factions, but disputes continued among the descendants of Tolui. The conflict over whether the empire would adopt a sedentary, cosmopolitan lifestyle or continue its nomadic, steppe-based way of life was a major factor in the breakup.

After Möngke Khan died in 1259, rival kurultai councils simultaneously elected different successors, the brothers Ariq Böke and Kublai Khan, who fought each other in the Toluid Civil War (1260–64) and dealt with challenges from the descendants of other sons of Genghis.^[4] Kublai successfully took power, but war ensued as he sought unsuccessfully to regain control of the Chagatayid and Ögedeid families. By Kublai's death in 1294, the empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own objectives: the Golden Horde khanate in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in Iran, and the Yuan dynasty in China, based in modern-day Beijing.^[5] In 1304, during the reign of Temür, the three western khanates accepted the suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty.^[6][7]

The Ilkhanate was the first to fall, which disintegrated between 1335–53. Next, the Yuan dynasty lost control of the Tibetan Plateau and China proper in 1354 and 1368, respectively, and collapsed after its capital Dadu was taken over by Ming forces. The Genghisid rulers of the Yuan then retreated north and continued to rule the Mongolian Plateau. The regime is thereafter known as the Northern Yuan dynasty, surviving as a rump state until the conquest by the Qing dynasty in the 1630s. The Golden Horde had broken into competing khanates by the end of the 15th century and its rule on Eastern Europe is traditionally considered to have ended in 1480 with the Great Stand on the Ugra River by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, while the Chagatai Khanate lasted until 1687, or, in the Yarkent Khanate's case, until 1705.